Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing (Senator Ludwig) to a question without notice asked by me today, relating to the lowering of Australia’s defence against infectious disease.

At a time when we have record numbers of people, goods and services moving around the world, not to mention the pressures of climate change, I am very concerned that there would be any suggestion in Australia about reducing our capacity to respond to the outbreak of disease.

We are one of the few developed countries in the world that does not have a central agency for disease control as such. The United States has the famous Epidemic Intelligence Service. In Australia we do not have anything like that, except the Master of Applied Epidemiology program that currently operates at the ANU. Basically, the federal government has decided not to fund that epidemiology program, which is run out of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU. A report was published this week in the Medical Journal of Australia which shows quite clearly that this is a disaster for the nation. It is leaving us vulnerable.

I do not accept Minister Ludwig saying that the government has supported a number of other programs and therefore this one at ANU can go, because it provided a flying squad which could leave at any stage and go around the country to address any outbreak of a communicable, infectious disease, and that relates to human and animal health. The people doing the program were hand picked, if you like. The program is at the ANU but these people are placed all around the country in Public Service agencies where they can respond to a crisis very fast. Now the government has decided to de-fund this capacity at the ANU.

I note that the article in the Medical Journal of Australia is by people such as Emeritus Professor Douglas, Fiona Stanley, Rob Moodie and others. They say:

We need to maintain a national field-based postgraduate epidemiology program.

I do not accept what the government is saying; I do not believe there is anything to replace it. A review of the program commissioned jointly by the government and the ANU in February this year was unequivocal in recommending that it should continue as a key element of Australia’s disease control activity. So why, when the government has a report showing that this program should remain as a key element of controlling disease outbreaks, is it de-funding the program? Let us face it; we are vulnerable to pandemics. You know what the national fear is once you get one of these outbreaks of infectious disease. We must maintain the capacity to respond quickly and effectively, with the best-trained people. But we are going to lose that as a result of the government de-funding this program, and it will be a tragedy for the nation if that actually occurs.

The article in the Medical Journal of Australia points out:

Over two decades … trainees—

from the program—

have played central roles in stemming the spread of about 200 epidemics, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza, Hendra virus, food-borne infections, and many others.

It also notes that their work has resulted in many academic publications. It is essential that this program continue. I am concerned that what we are going to have is a range of health departments around the country, supposedly able to be at the beck and call of the federal department, and suddenly that will be enough. I do not believe it is enough. I think this is a unique program. It was set up to respond to the lack of national coordination, flexibility and speed that is required, as well as having people with expertise in the area. These are highly qualified doctors, vets and nurses who go to the ANU for this block program and are then placed all around the country. There is nothing that the government is doing that replicates that program.

I call on the minister to go back and rethink this because the nation is getting a very good deal out of this program. Essentially, it has been a bargain for the government with a budget under $2 million per year, which meets these trainees’ stipends and supports a small team of academic supervisors. For $2 million a year, we have a capacity to respond quickly and effectively to a national disease outbreak. The government is taking that away and the community will not tolerate this if indeed the academics are correct and we see a lack of capacity as a result of this change. I call on the minister to take this back to the Minister for Health and Ageing and to come back to the Senate and tell us why the government has rejected the report that it commissioned earlier this year, which was unequivocal in recommending that it should continue as a key element of Australia’s disease control activity. It is wrong to undermine that and we want an answer as to why the government has done that.

Question agreed to.